Stars Lost in the Rapture
by celticProtagonist
Summary: The city of Rapture has a way of taking anything innocent and bright and making it rot from the inside. What hope does a ragtag group of a desperate scientist, half-crazed Splicers and a defective Little Sister/Big Daddy duo have of escaping with a shred of sanity? Voltron BioShock AU
1. Shiro

Bioshock!AU because I love the feels. I wrote this fic in 2nd person POV because I apparently like to make things hard for myself (though its mostly to preserve the 1st person feel of playing a game with a silent protagonist). They're short, sweet, and to the 'll be a "Good Ending" fic, with potential for a "Bad Ending" version later on.

* * *

-Shiro-

You very nearly shoot the man in the head when he peeks out from behind the frosted glass door and motions frantically for you to come inside. Though there's a faint smell of chemicals wafting from his lab coat and he looks like he hasn't slept in days, the sounds of Splicers scrapping lead pipes against the walls close behind is enough to drive you into the building behind him.

He locks the door behind you, peering out through the blinds at the band of Splicers stalking past through the plaza outside, only relaxing when their crazed ramblings fade off into the distance. "That was too close..." he says, running a hair through hair that has turned prematurely white. "Sorry about that, I can't risk the Splicers knowing I'm in here."

 _Here_ being a haphazardly thrown-together lab; just a small room crammed with tarnished steel tables and various glassware, all containing colored liquids flowing through a complex apparatus of tubes and flasks. The air smells sharply of boiling chemicals.

"You're the once shaking things up out there, aren't you?" he asks. "I heard the Splicers talking about you. I'm Shiro," he holds out a hand for you to shake, but you're hesitant. His hand looks odd, strangely shiny and oddly proportioned. You shake it out of common courtesy, and sure enough the touch is cold and rigid, made entirely of metal you realize. He seems to notice how uneasy it makes you and tucks the hand into his coat pocket, clearing his throat.

"I uh, I've been holed up in here for months, so sorry about the mess," he gestures to the cluttered lab. "I've been trying to synthesize a... cure, I suppose, for the ADAM addiction that makes the Splicers. I've had some luck but... nothing permanent so far." He sits down heavily on the edge of a table, heaving a tired sigh. "All of those people used to be normal. Sane. Well, as sane as someone could possibly be in this damn city," he says with a dry chuckle. "I want to believe that they can be saved. I _have_ to, or all of this will have been for nothing."

He takes a deep breath and straightens, looking you straight in the eye. "Look, I know you've got problems of your own, but there's something I need to ask you to do for me. Four of my friends... they're Spliced, but not in the way most other Splicers are. I managed to stave off the mutations with a prototype serum but... their minds aren't their own anymore. Normally I can keep them lucid enough for them to recognize me, but I lost track of them before I could give them a fresh dosage. I'm still working toward a more permanent solution and I can't leave the lab and let the Splicers ransack my supplies," he stops himself, realizing that his voice had been steadily rising, and takes a calming breath. "What I'm asking you is to find my friends and administer the prototype serum," he reaches over one of the tables and pulls a small black case from the cluttered bookcase behind it. He flips open the lid to show the four syringes filled with clear liquid inside. "I'll reward you, of course," he says, closing the case and placing it on the table between you. "I've got plenty of ADAM stashed away in here, and I've got no use for whatever cash I still have, so you're welcome to it when you come back."

Agreeing to his terms brings a relieved smile to his face, his shoulders sagging as he hands you the case. "I can't thank you enough for this. My friends don't deserve to suffer more than they already have. Just let me warn you: They're more lucid than normal Splicers, but they _are_ very dangerous. They'd been splicing up since before the Riots so they've had a long time to master those plasmids. You'll probably need to... knock them around a bit before you'll be able to get close enough to administer the serum. Just... please, don't kill them. They're all I have left."

He tells you where you're likely to find them, old haunts they would be drawn to in their unstable states; An apartment in Apollo Square, Fleet Hall in Fort Frolic, a lab in Point Prometheus, and a restaurant in Neptune's Bounty. A long way to go, but you feel it would be worth it. You turn to leave, but Shiro stops you on the way out.

"One more thing," he says, "You might run into a Little Sister around here. About 7 years old, white hair, carries a stuffed animal shaped like a lion. Her Big Daddy has a mustache painted on his helmet. Her name's Allura. You can talk to her if you like, her Big Daddy won't attack you if you don't hurt her. She knows a lot that might help you. I'm trying to save the both of them too."

He lets you leave then, wishing you a safe journey, worry etching itself back onto his face. There's a deeper story going on here, you can feel it, but as you walk back into the crumbling streets of Apollo Square to the sounds of Splicers cackling and the mouldering smell of damp gunpowder you remember that you have bigger things to worry about.


	2. Keith

-Keith-

The apartment in Apollo Square isn't far off the beaten path from Shiro's lab, though predictably the dilapidated buildings has turned the once navigable streets into an obstacle course. Still, the journey is nothing you haven't dealt with before... until you get into the complex itself. Someone's trapped the hallways to Hell; rigged pistols, explosives, oil slicks, even an automatic crossbow, all doing their damnedest to slow you down or injure you in some fashion. You nearly get punched full of holes more times than you care to admit, crashed through the rotting floorboards twice, and get close to being set on fire, but finally you make it past every death trap to collapse outside the apartment door and catch your breath. The door, surprisingly, has been left ajar, and you can hear a voice muttering, too soft to pick up.

Checking over your guns and gadgets you take a breath and push the door open. The apartment is a mess, all of the furniture moved to one corner to clear space for the pillars of files and papers that take up the majority of the room. The walls are covered in newspaper clippings and photos, scrawled over in red pen and strung with twine to build an enormous web that's begun to creep onto the ceiling. Oil lamps sit worrying close to the piles of paper and cast long wavering shadows across the floor. Sitting crosslegged in the center of the mess is a young man with shaggy black hair, his back turned as he mutters to himself, hands fluttering over the files spread out in front of him. He looks like he can't be much older than 20.

You make the mistake of taking a step forward and the floor creaks loudly beneath your feet. Immediately the young man falls eerily silent, still as a statue. His head whips around, fixing you with a crazed stare before his eyes light up like embers and the lanterns snuff themselves out, plunging the apartment into darkness.

"Did Fontaine send you?" he snarls and you just catch the flare of red light enough to dive out of the way before a fireball hits you in the face. You see the young man, lit from below by the glowing veins crawling up his arms, before he disappears back into the paper forest.

"I know what you people are," he growls and you struggle to pinpoint his voice in the gloom. "You're traitors. Murderers. You make yourselves out to be heroes, but you're really the monsters. You can't fool me. I _know_ what you've done!" you turn just in time to duck as he lunges at you out of the darkness, hands glowing like hot magma, and send a hail of bullets at him as he sails past. You're rewarded with a hiss of pain, but once again the glow fades and you've lost him.

"I'll expose you," he hisses, "I'll drag you kicking and screaming into the light if its the last thing I do!" This time you catch him before he can take another swipe, driving him back with a pained cry under a smattering of bullets. He glares at you with eyes like coals, the blood dripping down his arms slowly evaporating with the heat rising off his skin. The corners of the papers around him are starting to smoke.

"Fine," he spits, "if that's the way you want to play it. Your dirty little secrets can BURN ALONG WITH YOU!" The paper catches like dry tinder, bursting into hot orange flames that are quick to spread to the rest of the room. This is bad. You have to finish this quick or risk both of you burning alive in the inferno. The young man lets out a feral growl,throwing burst after burst of liquid fire after you, no longer concerned with hiding. The heat is intense, sweat stinging your eyes, but you don't dare stop moving for fear of your face getting melted off. You squeeze the trigger whenever you have time to spare, dropping grenades and plasmid traps to try and trip him up, but the young man is fast.

Finally, after dodging around streams of fire for the tenth time you manage to catch him in the side with a burst of Electro Bolt, his body going rigid just long enough for you to swing your wrench around in a hard swing to the head. The young man goes down in a heap and the flames snuff out with a fizzle. He groans, panting as he tries and fails to push himself up. His wounds are already healing under the influence of ADAM, but after everything he threw at you he's burned himself out. "No, no no no no!" he cries, "All my work... everything I learned... I can't- can't let this go unheard. The people deserve to know. The people _NEED_ to know! You... you've doomed us all to ignorance!" Though he's collapsed and bleeding sluggishly he puts in the effort to glare daggers as you approach, one of Shiro's syringes in your hand. You have to pin him to the floor with a knee on his back to get him to stop thrashing long enough to stick the needle in his neck. You empty the syringe and step back, watching as he convulses against the floorboards before going still.

You think for a horrifying moment that you may have killed him, but after a moment he lets out a moan, blinking blearily. "What...?" he murmurs, taking in the scattered ash and charred paper surrounding him, "I'm... back here again..." He catches sight of you watching and though his eyes no longer burn with insanity he still regards you with suspicion. He sees the syringe still clutched in your hand. "Damn. Shiro," he struggles to his feet, shaking and bleeding, and stumbles past you, giving you one last cautious look before he slips out the door.

You stand in the decimated apartment, feeling your skin tingle with first and second degree burns, and catch your breath. You look around, skimming the files and articles that survived the fire. Frank Fontaine is the main player in nearly everything, the name underlined and circled over and over until the pen tore through the paper. Smuggling rings, drug trafficking, human experimentation, faked deaths. Charred strings had once connected them all to the huge collage on the far wall, but whatever ultimate conclusion he had come to was now nothing more than a blackened smear. All of his work, burned in the fires of his own paranoia. You suppose there was something poetic about that.

Wandering through the rest of the apartment you scavenge what you can to stock back up and stumble upon a hastily written note among the stack of papers on a long-abandoned desk: _Don't forget, 374_. Beneath the desk is a soot-covered safe which pops open with a soft _chunk_ when you dial in the combination. Inside is a roll of crumpled bills and an audio log. You stash the bills in your pocket and hit the play button on the log and go back to sorting through the documents, letting the young man's voice wash over you.

 _"I'm getting close, I can feel it. Shiro and Pidge have been able to get me more info on Fontaine Futuristics in a single day than I've been able to get in the entire year I've been here. I knew that coming to Rapture was going to lead to something big; there's no way a city full of geniuses could stand up under its own ego. How Shiro, Pidge and Hunk ended up here with their morality intact I'll never know. Lance though... yeah, he doesn't surprise me. Still... it feels like something's going to boil over soon and if its what I suspect well... its not going to be good. Maybe we'll all be able to figure things out and leave before it blows up in our faces."_

Poor kid, you think. All of his snooping and preparation and he still wasn't ready for everything to fall apart. Instead of sharing his findings with the world he fell victim to the same corruption as everyone else. But maybe, like the Little Sisters, you'd given him a second chance.


	3. Allura

-Allura-

A Big Daddy groaning down the end of a corridor sets your nerves on edge and you freeze, reflexively tightening your grip around the barrel of your shotgun. Your ammo's running low, going toe to toe with a Big Daddy would probably end badly. You turn to go the opposite direction to take your chances with Splicers instead and very nearly run over a little girl. She blinks up at you with glowing yellow eyes, curly, silvery hair tied back with a blue bow, a patchwork stuffed lion clutched in one hand and an over sized needle in the other. Her dark skin is sickly pale, her dress and bare feet splattered with a mixture of dirt and blood.

"Hello there. I'm Allura," she says, her eerily altered voice lilting with a slight english accent. "Are you the one helping Black?"

Black? She's talking about Shiro you realize. This is the Little Sister he told you about. But where was her Big Daddy?

"Black is so worried about his friends. He wants to save them from becoming angels. He said he would save me and Daddy too." She peers around you and smiles, "Oh hello Daddy! I made a friend!"

You turn abruptly and come face to face with a hulking figure in a diving suit looming a good two feet over your head. The little orange mustache painting onto the rim of the glass would have been hilarious in another circumstance. The Big Daddy creaks and groans and you realize with a start that your standing between it and its Little Sister. Terror turns your legs to stone as the Big Daddy raises its massive hand, but all it does is push you to the side and beckon to the little girl. Allura skips over and hugs its leg, her arms not even reaching all the way around it.

"Daddy, this is the person helping Black!" she tells it. "Red has already come home!" The Big Daddy rumbles and pats Allura on the head, earning a giggle. "Daddy says he likes you!" she says. "I like you too, so let me tell you a secret! Blue always wanted to be an actor and everyone told him he was really good. He wanted to impress everyone so much that he learned to grow icicles from his fingers! Now everyone who comes to watch him stay forever because he's _soooooo_ good!" Her smile falters and she hugs the stuffed lion to her chest. "But Blue is very sad. He wanted to go home but they wouldn't let him. So he pretends that its all a play, and when the curtain closes he can go home."

She looks up at you, big eyes full of innocence despite the parasite festering in her gut. "I hope he can be happy again," she says. "You'll help him, won't you?"

You nod, conscious of the Big Daddy still looming over you, and Allura beams. "Oh I just knew you would! Soon we'll all go home, just like Black said! Goodbye new friend, I hope we can see you again soon!" She offers the paw of her toy lion to the Big Daddy, who takes it in a gentle grip. "Come on Daddy, let's go find some more angels!" she says, skipping off down the hallways with her Big Daddy at her side, the stuffed lion swinging between them. Strange. You've never seen a Big Daddy act so affectionate towards its Little Sister. Though, thinking back on it, it occurs to you that throughout the entire exchange, the lights inside the behemoth's helmet did not shine in anything but green.


	4. Lance

-Lance-

Fort Frolic isn't fun to wander through. Yes, the rest of the city is falling apart as the sea swallows it, but there's something about seeing the bars and restaurants and shops so desolate that made it even more unnerving. This was where people would go to enjoy themselves, kick up their feet, have a drink and forget about the woes of life for awhile. Now everything is rotting, from the carpets to the curtains to the fruit left out on the tables.

You make a beeline for the Fleet Hall theater, steering around the Splicers that pick through the remains like vultures. You're trying to conserve ammo. Whoever this "Blue" person is you know he's going to put up a hell of a fight, if it ends up anything like your fight with Shiro's fiery friend. You're going to need everything you've got.

You know you're getting close when the air temperature starts to drop. Your breath puffs out in little white clouds, and if Allura hadn't tipped you off to Blue's use of Winter Blast the ice crystals would have been a dead giveaway. They're everywhere, giving the lobby outside the theater a deceptive pristine look, hiding mold and grime beneath layers of sparkling ice.

The frost-encrusted doors take a few good shoves to get them open, but eventually you topple onto the theater floor. The ice twinkling in the lights of the flickering chandelier would look beautiful if it weren't for the fact that many of the chairs were occupied by bodies, Splicers used by Cohen for his 'high art' now with an extra coat of ice over the plaster.

"Welcome, esteemed guest! To the Stage Show Extravaganza!" a voice boomed from the stage. You look up and are greeted with the sight of a young man, standing in the bright refracted light center stage. His arms are thrown wide, a manic grin plastered across his face. Ice has clustered at his elbows and shoulders. This would be Blue then. You check your weapons one last time and step further into the theater, ready for a fight.

"Sadly it seems as though our merry troupe is short on members. How about we get a volunteer from the audience!"

The young man flicks his hand and the floor starts to rumble. Ice crystals push out from between the seats, toppling their expired occupants onto the floor. They grow taller and taller, blocking the way out and the way, well, _anywhere_ , save for a single direction.

"Put on a good show for us, will you?" the young man calls out to you. "I'd hate for my audience to get bored!"

He's toying with you. This is a maze and you're the rat chasing down the piece of cheese. Except this maze is actively trying to kill you, sprouting spikes and crushing pillars and its all you can do keep moving, slipping and sliding in an attempt to keep ahead of the death traps. All the while the young man monologues on the stage above you.

"'Why, sir, I'll give you my opinion,'" he begins, his voice booming loud throughout the hall. "'Of all failings, that of an idle curiosity is the most abject and contemptible: is is generally found in those whose utter littleness of mind prevents their engaging in any useful or honorable pursuit, and who, thus incapable of action themselves, seek to be distinguished by meddling in the affairs of others.'" He paces the stage, gesticulating expansively. You're sure that if you weren't busy trying to stay alive listening to him could actually be enjoyable.

"'A curious man is, in my opinion, a species of thief. Men are so branded who enter our abodes and abstract our property; and is not the individual who violates every law of decency and social life, and seeks to clandestinely possess himself to the secrets of another, only a robber in a different degree? Such a man I think you, Mr. Pry, and I should feel as little compunction in throwing you over the bannisters were I to catch you in my dwelling-place, as I should a swindler or a house-breaker.'"

He ends and takes a bow to the applause of creaking ice and your own harsh breathing. "Paul Pry," he tells you, "everyone just loves an underdog hero."

You dodge as another icicle lances up from beneath you, slicing through the sleeve of your sweater and drawing blood. This is getting really annoying. You flex your hand, feel your altered genes fill your veins with heat and with a snap of your fingers light fire to the wall of ice in front of you. It sizzles and melts in a plume of mist, obscuring you from view and giving you a chance to make a break for the stage before the young actor can track you down. He's caught off guard as you vault out of the cloud and isn't fast enough to get out of the way of the fireball that catches him in the shoulder.

He hisses and grabs at the burn, ice creeping back up over the rapidly reddening skin. "That's cheating!" he snarls. "You can't just crash your way into show business. You've got to _work_ for it!"

The floor splinters up into a field of spikes around him, forcing you to either back up or let your feet get impaled. You reply with a volley of bullets, catching him in the side before a wall of ice blocks the rest. "Lucky shot," he growls, clutching the wound and sealing the bullet hole with a coat of frost, "too bad this isn't amateur night!" With another flick of his hand the wall explodes into a spray of shards and you're not quite fast enough to avoid them all. A few sink into your leg and suddenly it feels like your muscles are freezing over. Ice spreads over your knee and you stumble.

The young man chuckles, cracking his knuckles as he saunters over. "Come on now, its not time for curtain call!" he says, "That can't be all you got!"

You think fast. If he gets his hands on you that's it. Your hand blazes orange and you press it down over the frozen joint in a gout of steam. The young actor flinches back from the hot cloud and now, free to move, you lunge for him with a fiery punch to the chest. The blow sends him skidding across the stage with a cry, rolling twice before coming to a stop.

Slowly the auditorium fills with the sound of dripping water as the icicles lacing the ceiling begin to melt. You get slowly to your feet. It hurts to put pressure on your wounded leg but you're able to ignore it. After all, you've had worse. The young actor doesn't try to get up when you approach him, instead curling in on himself with his hands clutched to his chest. "The show must go on," he whispers. "That's what they told me. If I gave them a good show I could go home. The show must go on." He turns his head as you kneel beside him, looking up at you with large, scared eyes. "What happens if the curtain falls early?"

You don't have an answer for him. All you can do is take another of Shiro's syringes and inject the serum into his neck. He lets out a gasp, curling further into himself as his body shakes. The seizures last for a worrying moment, but at last he falls still. Slowly he uncoils, dripping with melted ice and cradling his chest. He takes in the damp, destroyed theater with a look of horror.

"Did... did _I_ do this?" he asks. "I didn't- I didn't mean to-" he stops, looking down at his hands tinged a faint blue with frostbite, "when did I-?"

You cut him off with a gentle pat on the shoulder, offering a hand to help him to his feet. You're both pretty unsteady but the support helps.

"I'm... I'm not supposed to be here," he says to you. "I need to go. Back to Shiro. He'll know what to do." He staggers off, limping down the stairs and up the main aisle. Before he slips out the main doors he turns back to you. "Thanks," he calls, "for... helping me out." And then he's gone.

You take a moment to catch your breath before setting out to explore back behind the musty curtain. The soaked boards of the scaffolding holding up the backdrop creak ominously, probably ready to give at any moment. You make a quick sweep, finding a spare healing hypo and an audio log on an old vanity with a cracked and dusty mirror. The hypo makes slow work of your wounds so you take a seat and hit the play button on the audio log. The voice of the young actor flows from the speaker.

 _"_ _Cohen came after me_ _ **again**_ _today after the last performance. Pounding on my dressing room door, begging me to come sit for painting. Don't get me wrong, I like attention just... not that kind. No thanks, I've heard the rumors. I might be working for the guy but I've still got my dignity. Maybe I should just higher Hunk to be my bodyguard, maybe that'd scare that creep away. Heh, nah, I know the big guy wouldn't hurt a fly. But its nice having him and the others around. And yeah, I guess Keith too. As crazy as this whole conspiracy thing is that they've all gotten obsessed with, its kind of exciting. Its nice being able to focus on something else. With them I don't need to keep up the act."_

So Cohen had tried to get his claws into the kid too. You're glad he didn't or you would have had to kill him along with the rest of his so-called disciples when you were locked in this madhouse before. Seems like he managed to keep his head though, at least until the ADAM got to it. Hopefully Shiro could help him get it back.


	5. Hunk

-Hunk-

The Bathysphere trips out to Neptune's Bounty are mercifully long enough for you to catch a bit of shuteye. The view out the window of flickering neon lights and shimmering schools of fish have long since lost their appeal. In your sleep you can forget that you're hundreds of meters underwater in a crumbling city full of people who want to kill you. The delusion is comforting, if only for a little while.

The ruined port is just as horrible as you remember. Reeking of rotting fish and rotting bodies. Corpses strung up from rafters to scare off Fontaine's smugglers. Why anyone would come here you could never guess, but apparently Shiro's friend had holed himself up in a restaurant called Amphitrite's Pearl outside of Fontaine Fisheries. You vaguely recall passing by it before but had never bothered to go inside.

Now when you try you find the doors blocked. Peering through the dirty smeared glass you see tables and chairs and an entire bar counter barricading the entrances, like whoever was inside had uprooted the entire restaurant to keep people out. Circling around the entire places fails to reveal a way in, so you do the only thing you can think of and pull yourself up onto the roof. Parts of it sag beneath your feet so you tread carefully, picking your way across in search of an opening. The jagged hole you eventually come across is ringed with broken, splintering wood, and leads down into the darkened kitchen.

You drop down onto the dank room and move swiftly between the countertops, trying to keep quiet. The doorway between the kitchen and the main floor is missing one of its big swinging doors while the other hangs loosely from its hinges. You peer around it, unnerved by how stiflingly quite it is, and take a look around the dining room. As you expected the floor has been cleared, tables ripped out of their moorings and thrown against the walls beside piles of chairs and the remains of a long bar counter to block any way of getting in from the ground floor.

In the middle of the empty space is yet another young man, sitting with his knees pulled up against his chest, rocking slowly back and forth. Just looking at him you can tell that he's a good deal stockier than the other two. Would have to be to rip an entire bar out of its foundation. Maybe, just maybe, if you're quiet, you can sneak up behind him and avoid a fight.

Of course, the moment you move to creep into the dining room, the remaining door breaks free of its hinges and crashes to the ground, nearly crushing you. The young man's head whips around, eyes darting frantically to try and take in the entire room at once. "Who's there?" he calls in a fearful voice. "There – there's nothing left for you to take! Please, just leave!"

So much for avoiding a fight. Holding back a sigh you stand and enter the room. The young man takes one look, sees the gun in your hands, and scrambles away from you, eyes wide. "No, stay back! I'm not with the Smugglers, I swear!" he cries, holding out a pleading hand as you come toward him. This kid must be stuck in the memory of Ryan's crusade against Fontaine's smugglers, you realize. You loosen your grip on the gun, letting it dangle, lax but ready, to maybe try to ease his fears as you edge closer. But the terror in his eyes is absolute, his pupils shrunk to pinpricks, and you notice too late the glowing veins crawling up the sides of his neck. He shouts, "Get back!" and his voice creates a shockwave powerful enough to send you skidding back several feet, dropping the gun in your surprise. Your ears are ringing, but you don't have time to recover as he rushes you with uncanny speed, catching you in the chest with his arm and slamming you into the mess of furniture against the wall.

"I'm sorry but... I don't want to die," he tells you in a broken voice, hauling you out of the wreckage and throwing you across the room. You don't give yourself much time to get your breath back, unholstering a pistol and taking a few pot shots as the young man comes at you again. A couple catch him in the shoulder and while he staggers back with a hiss of pain, he shrugs it off and keeps coming.

The floor cracks beneath his feet as he suddenly lunges at you, hands going for your throat. You duck and roll just before he can crash into you, dropping a grenade beneath his feet and getting clear. It explodes moments later with an ear splitting _bang_ that throws the young man against the wall. Tables and chairs splinter in the collision and for a moment you think you might have stopped him, but bits and pieces clatter to the ground as he digs himself out, breathing hard and bleeding in several places. He stands, swaying on his feet, clutching his head in his hands.

"Why?" he whispers. "I... I didn't know. I didn't know that Ryan was planning to hit the Fisheries! I left! I... I put it all behind me so why? Why are you trying to kill me?"

The sheer weight of the confusion and fear that makes his voice shake is enough to give you pause. You tell yourself that you're trying to help him, not hurt him, but you also can't be certain that he would even be able to listen to you if you try to explain. ADAM has imprisoned his mind behind the memory of the two sides of the Civil War tearing each other to shreds and its frightened him to the point of hysteria. He's lashing out because he's scared.

Very slowly you put the pistol on the floor, kick it just out of reach, put up your hands to show them empty, and take a step back. You figure that even if he comes at you again with the intention to hurt, you've got plasmids at your disposal to fight back. But for now maybe you can at least show him that you don't want to keep fighting.

He flinches as you move, eyes flickering nervously from your open palms to the gun on the floor and back again. Uncertainty flickers across his face.

"...What do you want?" he asks you. "There's nothing left, they've destroyed everything! I don't know anything!" He takes a step back, eyes wide, and already you know that your half-baked plan didn't work. "You're trying to trick me! You want to drag me back to Ryan! Well I won't go! I'm not a traitor!"

This time you're ready, ducking and rolling as the young man's shout shatters what remains of windows behind where you once stood. You have to end this fast; his freakish stamina will outlast you tenfold if you try to keep fighting him head on. You keep moving, plan-B forming in your head even as he makes to bull rush you a second time. You skid to a stop, let him come to you, and at the last possible second throw yourself to the side, skinning the palm of your hand on the splintery floor to regain your feet as he goes sailing past you. He has a second to look surprised before you catch him with a burst of Winter Blast that spreads rapidly over his back and traps him against the wall. You know that it would only take him a moment to break out once he gets over the shock, but you don't give it to him.

Shiro's syringe in hand you waste no time in sticking the needle into his neck and let the concoction do the rest. The ice melts and the young man falls to the floor, shivering from both the cold and whatever havoc the drug is wreaking in his system. Soon enough, just like the others, the convulsions stop and he's left groaning in pain and confusion. For a while he just lay there, catching his breath.

"Back here... again..." he mumbles, struggling to prop himself up. He catches sight of you standing over him and for a brief moment the manic fear is back before he catches himself and settles for mild suspicion instead. "You don't look like a Splicer... why are you here?" he asks.

You give the empty syringe in your hand a little shake for an explanation. There's a spark of recognition in his eyes and he slaps a hand against his neck, feeling the little raised bump where the needle had been.

"Of course. Shiro! He... he's got to be worried sick, I-" he goes to stand, stumbles a bit, and you prop him up before he can fall. "Sorry I... I'm okay. I... I need to go I... Thanks," he says, self-consciously cutting off his stuttering. He gives you a pat on the shoulder, probably with more force than he really intended, and trudges for the front doors, pausing just long enough to heave the barricading furniture out of the way before he's gone.

You let out a breath, massaging your shoulder. You're feeling a little jilted, having these boys just walk out after coming to their senses, but you let it go. You know what trauma feels like.

With the adrenaline fading off you're starting to feel like you got hit by a freight train, but you go collect your fallen guns and comb the place for anything useful. The restaurant was probably quite lavish back in its heyday, if the chewed remains of velvet lining the booths and the broken chandeliers sparking in their sockets are any indication. Just imagining all of the fancy seafood dishes that probably came out of the kitchen makes your stomach growl. You can only guess why the kid was drawn here until you find an audio log stashed in the liquor cabinet. On habit you hit play and continue your search.

 _"_ _If someone told 5 years ago that I would be serving food in a restaurant under the sea I probably would have laughed at them. I mean, up until about a year ago I would have argued that habitable spaces under the water is physically impossible. To consider pressure compensation, not to mention sustainable food and oxygen supplies, plus enough juices to power the whole place would have been thought impossible. And yet, here I am, and Hephaestus is one of the most beautiful pieces of machinery that I've ever seen. Still, working on it didn't really pay the bills, but luckily I've got Lance. How he managed to get me into the Pearl I'll never know, but he's earned those free shrimp cocktails at this point. Even if he's been dragging some weird people in here with him lately. They're fun to have around though, especially since Pidge is apparently a prodigy. Its nice to be able to talk shop with someone again. -Sigh-. This place is really something else."_

Kid must have been pretty sharp to get hired into working on Hephaestus at so young an age. It just makes it all the more tragic what happened to him. You could only imagine what it must have been like, making it down here to Rapture during its Golden Days. A shiny, juicy fruit that with time would only sour and rot as genius gave way to madness. Even the most brilliant among them would get caught in the collapse.


	6. Almost Assembled

-Almost Assembled-

Apollo Square stands between you and Point Prometheus so you don't see why you shouldn't stop by the lab to make sure that it's still standing. Its still there, thankfully, and when you tap gently on the glass the door opens enough to bowl you over with a wave of chemical stench. Shiro's head pokes out and his haggard face breaks into a grin when he sees you.

"You're back!" he says. "Don't just stand there, come inside!"

You follow him back into the lab and are only a bit surprised to find it more full than before. The three young man you faced are all there, wedged in wherever they can fit in the cluttered lab. They stare at you as you enter behind Shiro. The one with the black hair watches with open suspicion while the other two lean against each other and look on with cautious respect.

"I can't thank you enough for giving me your help," Shiro continues, weaving between the tables. "Thanks to you I've been able to focus on synthesizing a permanent cure. I'm _so_ close." He looks up at you with something teetering on hope in his eyes. "I might actually be able to get everyone out of here."

"We're short a cast member," the actor mumbles, "we need Pidge."

"We'll get her back Lance," Shiro tells him gently. "We're not leaving without her."

"If she's even still around..." the big one adds. "What if something's happened to her?"

"Hunk, you know her as well as I do. She can take care of herself."

"And how can we trust _him_ not to hurt her," the last one growls, still fixing you with a dark glare. "He could be trying to trick us."

"You need to believe me on this on Keith," Shiro says and you can see the fatigue he's holding back. "I trusted him with the three of you and I'm trusting him with Pidge too. This is the best way to make sure you're all safe."

Keith snorts but finally looks away. Obviously whatever was in Shiro's serum had pulled them from their various hallucinations but had not cured the deeper symptoms. Part of you wondered if such a cure was even possible. Still, like Shiro had said, they aren't like the average Splicer, twisted physically as well as mentally into something no longer fully human. They're more aware, a little less maniacal and prone to fits of rage. Shiro has managed to give them temporary stability, so perhaps they aren't beyond hope.

"Don't mind Keith," Shiro tells you, pulling you over to the far side of the lab, "he's got his reasons to act the way he does, but he's worried about Pidge like we all are." He hands you a pack of healing hypos. "The only place I can think of her going is Point Prometheus, in her parents' old lab. Its up in the Optimized Eugenics wing. The door code is 279. I probably don't need to tell you this, but watch yourself. With all the Plasmid research that went on in there its probably become a nest for all kinds of Splicers."

He goes to unlock the door and hold it open for you, giving you a grateful grin. "Call me selfish but I'm glad you ended up here when you did. I'm not sure what I would've done without your help. Whatever you're looking for down here, I really hope you find it."

You walk past him, out into the dank streets of Apollo Square and hear him lock the door behind you. Suddenly you're not sure if you're going to see this place again. Fontaine is waiting for you at the top of Point Prometheus and you feel like you've kept the bastard waiting long enough. There's no telling if its a fight you'll come back from. You round the back side of the lab and head in the general direction of the tall tower in the distance beyond the glass enclosing the Square.

A loud clanking sound echoes down the street to your left and you freeze, hands clenched around a shotgun as you slowly turn in place. Further down you find two glowing yellow eyes staring up at you from the other side of a pool of soft green light. A moment of silence passes and the yellow eyes blink.

"Oh, hello new friend!" a little voice calls and the Little Sister named Allura comes skipping out of the shadows, her Big Daddy close behind.

"Have you been talking to Black?" she asks. "He looks so much happier now! Now that Yellow and Blue have come back only Green is missing! Oh!" she looks up, bouncing excitedly on the balls of her feet. "Are you going to get her?"

You nod, yes you are, and Allura jumps up and down with little delighted peals of laughter. "Yay! Yay! Green is coming back! They're all going to be together again to save the universe! I've had dreams about it!" She spins around, the stuffed lion in her outstretched hands, and dances in circles around her Big Daddy's feet. "Did you hear that Daddy? Soon everything is going to be okay!"

The Big Daddy rumbles deeply in reply, scooping Allura up into it arms and setting her on its shoulder. She wraps her arms around its helmet, giggling.

"Black promised to take me and Daddy with him when he leaves," she tells you. "He said that at night the sky is full of little lights! Doesn't that sound pretty?" She leans her head against her Big Daddy and sighs happily, no doubt imagining a twinkling wonderland. "I hope I can see it soon..."

Her wistful face sends a pang through your chest. How could someone do this to such an innocent little girl? How could someone live with themselves, knowing what they had done to these children. You know Brigid Tenenbaum felt the sting of her guilt, or she would not be doing everything in her power to save the girls that her discoveries had destroyed. She would not have given you the power to save them. You can save Allura, you know this, but you also know that doing that now would force you to kill her Big Daddy and there was something about the thought of separating them that felt wrong.

No, you can think of some other way. Or perhaps Shiro has a few ideas of his own. Either way you aren't going to let either of them suffer for longer than they need to, and its just another reason to come back alive from facing Fontaine.

"Green said that we live on a big ball of dirt spinning really _really_ fast but that's just silly!" Allura says, kicking her feet from atop her perch. "If it's spinning really fast we'd all just fall off! Green said she'd teach me lots of things so that I can be as smart as her one day, because she knows all kinds of things! Black says she's just like her Daddy, but she doesn't like to talk about him. Or her Mommy. I think it makes her sad."

She looks down at you with big solemn eyes. "I think if she came back to Black and the others she'd be happier." She yawns abruptly, apparently tuckered out from all the excitement. The Big Daddy groans, sounding strangely concerned, and lifts her off its shoulders before she falls, keeping her tucked against its chest. "Don't worry Daddy," she tells it, patting the steel gorget with a small hand, "my friend is going to find Green and bring her back!"

The Big Daddy turns and starts to stomp off down the street away from you. Allura pokes her head around its arm and waves at you. "Goodbye friend!" she calls. "See you again soon!"

You can't help yourself and wave back, feeling yourself smile for the first time in a while. As tragic as the fates of Allura and her Big Daddy are is hard not to be endeared by them.

When the Big Daddy's footsteps are nothing more than background noise you get back on track for Point Prometheus, feeling like things are finally coming to the end. Thinking back on what Allura had said you humor yourself with the thought that you're going to help save the universe.


	7. Pidge

-Pidge-

"... _The only way to get through that door Fontaine went though is to have a little one open it for you. Und they'll only trust you if you look like, sound like, und even smell like one of those big, stinking brutes._ " Tenenbaum tells you as you step into the lobby of Point Prometheus. Her heavy accent carries all the disdain she's carried for the things she's unwittingly helped create and the thing you'll have to become in order to get to Fontaine.

Big Daddies... you've killed plenty of them to rescue their Little Sisters but you've never given much thought to where they come from. You're not sure if you'll ever want to know, but standing here, hearing faint discordant music in the distance, you don't think you'll be able to remain ignorant for long.

You climb the stairs and head down the hall for the Optimized Eugenics wing. There's apparently a piece you'll need there to fool the Little Sisters into thinking you're a Big Daddy, but you've got a different priority. You ignore Tenenbaum squawking through your radio about wasting time and dial in the code to the door label _S. & C. Holt_, and stand back as it slides open. There's a short corridor split off from the main room by a wall of glass, and through it you can see what remains of the lab. It's dark, the lights flickering sporadically which only makes the scene inside all the more confusing. Bits and pieces of lab equipment appear to be _floating_ , spinning in gentle circles around a young woman sitting crosslegged on a table in the center. Staying as quiet as you can, you creep to the edge of the glass and peer around.

As if on cue the door behind you slams shut and locks itself tight.

"Where are they?" a voice growls and you look back to find the girl in the lab staring at you over her shoulder, eyes obscured behind the light reflecting off the round lenses of a pair of spectacles. She's small, slender, and can't be more than 17, but the unfiltered fury seething in her voice is downright intimidating. The levitating objects are starting to move faster.

"I _said:_ Where are they?" she repeats, turning slowly to face you. The reflected light slips off her glasses and behind them her eyes glow an eerie green.

You don't have time to try and answer before something speeds toward your head and you duck to avoid getting brained, hearing glass shatter against the wall behind you. You figure it would probably be a good idea to move.

You take a dive into the room as Pidge (because this _has_ to be Pidge) snarls, tracking you with a turn of her head. "Where's my mom?" she growls, sending another piece of lab equipment at you without so much as a twitch of her fingers.

"Where's my dad?" you can't finish dodging the first thing before another comes careening for you, forcing you flat to the floor.

"Where's _Matt_?" the swirl of objects around her turns into a veritable tornado and its all you can do to keep from getting pummeled. You dive from cover to cover, hiding behind decks and overturned tables, though it seems like even they are having a hard time staying on the ground.

"I know you took them," she shrieks, "give them back!"

You brace yourself for the large glass beaker that come barreling for your head and right before it collides you give it a hefty burst of your own Telekinesis, flinging it out of orbit and back at the one who first threw it. The maneuver catches Pidge off guard and the glass smashes into her shoulder, peppering her with shattered shards and pulling out a cry of pain. Her glare is made all the more horrible by the fresh blood trickling down her face.

"I'm not going down so easily," she hisses, slowly rising to her feet. "If you won't tell me where they, you can't stop me from tearing this place apart to find them!"

She clenches her hands and the floor shakes, everything that was too heavy before lifts off the ground and leaving you entirely exposed. Waves of glassware and beaker stands, bunsen burners and various implements that you don't have names for do their damnedest to try and bludgeon you to death, and the ones that escape being shattered by bullets or flung back by your plasmids very nearly succeed. You really hope that you imagined the sharp _crack_ that sounds from your ribcage when you're hit right in the chest by a metal lab stool, but the pain begs to differ.

Eventually you ditch trying to get a shot in and put all your efforts into fighting Telekinesis with Telekinesis. You push your EVE reserves to the limit, deflecting back whatever you can, scoring the odd hit on the young woman enough to the point when the flying objects start to slow. She drops to a knee, breathing hard and glaring daggers with eyes beginning to flicker, though as angry as she is its apparent that she has less stamina than you do.

With one last furious scream she wrenches the cabinets off the walls, sending them careening across the room with a shower of wood splinters, looking to crush you against the back wall. You duck under one, smack another away with a swing of your wrench, and make a dash for her. Catching the next cabinet in a telekinetic grip you turn yourself into a battering ram, letting the rest of the objects impact against your makeshift shield. You hear Pidge give a short cry right before you vault up onto the table and break the cabinet against her. She collapses against the table, panting and dazed, and everything else that was once airborne comes crashing to the floor.

"I just... I just wanted to find them..." she croaks, voice breaking around the edges. "You need to pay... you need to pay for what you did to them! They're still here, I know it!"

You don't have the heart to tell her that she's wrong. You don't really know what all happened down here, but it certainly seems like the people who got on Fontaine's bad side either never came back, or came back as something different. Her family is most likely beyond saving at this point.

She fights back when you try to use the syringe, sinking her nails into your arm and drawing blood. It's easy to pin her now that her plasmid has burned out, though from the rage burning in her eyes you can tell that she's still trying to use it against get the needle in her neck and give her room to sweat through the reaction.

She gasps and shakes and curls up on herself before laying still. Eventually she turns over, staring up at the ceiling with a frustrated expression on her face. One of the lenses on her glasses was cracked. "I'm here..." she says, mulling over the words, "I came back here..."

With a sigh she rubs her eyes, groaning with discomfort. She peeks out between her fingers, eyeing you, sitting on the edge of the table, with suspicion. "I don't know you... but if I'm here... did Shiro send you?"

You nod, standing stiffly and awkwardly extend a hand to help her up, one which she blatantly ignores. She pushes herself off the table, moving gingerly. She's probably more sore and bruised than you are you realize, but you can't offer any assistance before she's already marched out of the lab, picking her way over debris and shattered glass. At the door she wrenches open a panel, inputs a code, and steps out. You can see her silhouette striding purposely down the hall from the other side of the frosted windows.

You take a weary breath and stretch, feeling the fresh bruises catch and pull. This fight's left you tired, more so than the others for the sheer strain you can feel in your nerves for using so many plasmids. But, you can practically feel Tenenbaum hovering on the other side of the radio, so with a sigh you pick yourself up and get to combing through the lab.

The EVE hypos you scrounge out of the remaining cabinets are a godsend that makes the pounding in your head a little more bearable. As with every other fight there's an audio log stashed away behind an old photo of a younger Pidge hanging from the shoulders of a slightly older boy, a man and woman behind them. Her family, without a doubt. You sit back and let the young woman's voice wash over you while the rest of your headache slowly disappears.

 _"_ _I can't believe it,"_ she says, intensity straining her voice, _"Shiro came back. He actually came back. I didn't- after all this time I... I was starting to lose hope. But he came back, even if he's different now. Whatever they did to him... it messed him up to the point where he can't remember much from when he was missing. Considering that they took half of his damn arm I can't blame him for it. Even though the memories are gone, he keeps telling himself that he's going to try to fix things, that he needs to find a cure for the plasmids before its too late. He's going to need my help but I... haven't told him that I've used them yet. I can't. If I'm going to keep trying to find my family I need something to give me a leg up. I'm glad Shiro's back but this means that I definitely can't stop. After all, if he was able to escape, than maybe Mom, Dad and Matt are still okay."_

The audio log grinds to a stop and leaves the lab in silence. The kid was chasing ghosts based on very little evidence and she almost lost herself because of it. You can't condemn her for turning to plasmids though; the power it grants you is well worth the terrifying things its done to your body, and you're fairly certain that if it weren't for them you'd be long dead at this point. But for a teenage girl to feel like she needs to risk losing her mind in exchange for power says a lot about how far this place has gone to hell.

Rapture is far beyond saving, just like most of the people who had fallen to the temptation of a false paradise. You can only hope that all you've done has saved the people worth saving. You stand back up, dust yourself off, and go on your way. Its time to bury Fontaine for all he's done.


	8. Form Voltron

-Form Voltron-

When you return from the peak of Point Prometheus, it's with new bruises and a limp and six little girls trailing behind you. Fontaine's stronghold crumbles behind you. the water roars as the tower topples in a geyser of bubbles, shaking the ground beneath your feet.

Every inch of you aches, but you feel as though some great weight has finally been lifted from your shoulders. You can't remember a time when you've felt so light. Fontaine is dead and you are free.

And you're not the only one. The little girls, clutching to your hands and the legs of your trousers, are restored to their clear-eyed, rosy-cheeked innocence. They glance with fear around a world that's been unveiled from the sugar-coated fantasy they had been living in. You find it just a little funny how these frightened little girls had been the ones to land the killing blow, stabbing into Fontaine's corrupted body over and over with those huge needles until he had fallen still. They'd make strong women when they grow up.

There was still one more waiting for you help, which is why you're leading the girls back down the streets of Apollo Square, hoping that Shiro and the others are still holed up in the lab. Emerging into the square outside you're greeted with the towering form of Allura's Big Daddy hovering over the shape of Shiro, kneeling on the paving stones and speaking with Allura. The other four stand a ways back, leaning against the wall of the lab looking exhausted. They all look up as you approach and the girls press closer, all trying to hide behind your legs.

"You're back!" Shiro says, rising to his feet. "We could see the tower falling from here and feared you went down with it. Glad to see we were wrong."

He walks up to you, with more pep in his step than you thought him capable of. "I finished the serum," he tells you, his face split in a giddy grin. "It _worked_. Lance, Keith, Hunk, Pidge. The ADAM doesn't have a hold over them anymore. I can get them out of here!"

His smile falters and he looks over his shoulder, observing Allura chatter to her Big Daddy. "Now we just have to do something for them..."

He trailed off as he seems to notice for the first time the gaggle of little girls clustered about your legs, staring up at him with big round eyes. "Are those..." he begins, uncertain, "are those Little Sisters?"

Once, yes, but not anymore.

"...Did you do this?" Shiro asks you, thinly veiled hope in his voice. When you nod his eyes widen, head turning back and forth, from you, to the girls, to Allura, and back to you.

"Could it... could it really be that easy?" he murmurs, half to himself.

"You can save Allura, can't you?" its less a question and more a statement. You nod again and see his fists clench as he holds back a flash of anger before he takes a deep breath. "I can only assume that you didn't before because of her Big Daddy. But she shouldn't have to stay like that anymore."

You can't help but agree. She's been waiting long enough. You tell the girls not to worry, that you'll be right back, before you follow Shiro back across the square to where Allura waits. Once again Shiro kneels down to her level.

"Allura, our friend would like to do something to help you. You remember him, right?" The Little Sister looks over to you and her face splits into a smile.

"Uh-huh!" she chirps. "He helped bring everyone back! Hello friend!" she calls over to you with a wave, "I'm happy you came back!"

"That's right Allura. He came back to help you so that you and your Daddy can come home with me and everyone else. But there's something you need to do first, okay?"

Allura looks back to Shiro with big curious eyes and nods her head.

"You need to tell your Daddy not to worry, and that he can trust us to take care of you. Can you do that for me?" She nods again and Shiro smiles appreciatively, patting her head.

"Thank you Allura. This won't take long, I promise." He stands back up as Allura turns to her Big Daddy.

"Daddy," she says with conviction, "Black says I have to go with my new friend for a little, so you have to hold Mr. Lion for me, okay? It's _very_ important that you _not_ let him go. If you drop him I'll be _very_ upset." The Big Daddy groans worryingly, but Allura thrusts the stuffed lion into its giant hands.

"It's alright Daddy, I'll be right back," she says, hugging it around the knee briefly before skipping back. "Now you stay _right there_ and _don't move_ , okay?" She turns on her heel and walks up to you, head held high like a queen. The Big Daddy very nearly takes a step to follow her but catches itself, letting out a morose moan and clutching the stuffed lion to its chest. It's impressive really, how much this Big Daddy does to please its charge.

"Daddy's okay now, new friend," she announces. "Are you going to help me go see the stars now?"

You offer her a smile and a nod, lowering yourself to your knees and extending a hand for her to take. Taking one last look up at Shiro and the Big Daddy you reach up and place a hand on Allura's head, close you eyes, and _reach_.

Heat flows through your palm, a rush of bright liquid light firing through nerve and synapse that you wrangle and direct toward the dark corrupted pit where the deep sea slug, the answer to fueling Fontaine's army of Splicers, has made its home in Allura's gut. You take a certain measure of satisfaction imagining the creature screeching as it burns like tissue paper under an open flame. You can faintly hear stunned gasps, no doubt from Shiro and his gang. You know what they're seeing; bright light erupting from Allura's eyes and mouth, her skin glowing like a paper lantern as the plasmid purges her body of the slug's tainted presence. You remember the first time you witnessed it for yourself; if anything you'd be surprised if they _weren't_ freaked out.

The last of the power drains from your fingers, leaving a familiar bone-deep ache in its wake. You open your eyes with a weary sigh, catching Allura as she starts to slump into your arm. Her little body trembles and her breath is shaky, but when she looks up at you her eyes are clear and blue as the mid-day sky.

She blinks, gaze sliding past you to take in the dilapidated skyline behind you with equal parts fascination and fear. She probably never got to see Rapture tear itself apart before they took her away and rewired her brain.

A light seems to go on in her eyes and she lets out a little gasp, whipping her head around to stare back to where Shiro stands, the others behind him, before her attention snaps onto where the Big Daddy is still standing, holding the little stuffed lion in its hands. She rips out of your arms and bolts for it, tripping up a couple times on unsteady feet, and all but launches herself into its arms. It makes an almost comical noise as it juggles both the little girl and the stuffed animal, doing its best not to drop either of them, but Allura has latched her arms around its neck and doesn't look like she'll be letting go anytime soon. She wails into its shoulder, what has to be at least a year's worth of suppressed terror coming out all at once. The Big Daddy gives a soft groan and holds her close.

"Incredible..." you hear Shiro say as you usher the girls into the relative safety of the small crowd. "I didn't think it was actually possible... I've only ever heard that attempts to remove the slug would only kill the subject..." he says with a faint smile. "Undoing the rest of the mental conditioning will take time but... I think all of us are going to need some therapy after this."

"What about the Big Daddy?" Its Pidge who asks this, leaning in around Shiro to study the behemoth from a safe distance.

"It been looking into that for a while now," he answers, joining her in her clinical observations. "Under normal circumstances, a standard issue Big Daddy would be impossible to separate from his suit because of the grafting process. However," he gestures to the hand that the Big Daddy has cradled around Allura, "I noticed _this_ the last time I got a close look."

Pidge leans in even closer, throwing caution to the wind as she brings her nose within inches of the Big Daddy's massive hand. "That's the greek letter for Psi... he's an Alpha Series!"

You look again, having to squint to see from this distance, but sure enough there's a trident-shaped symbol branded onto the back of the Big Daddy's glove. You'd encountered one before, but at the time you were too busy trying to keep it from killing you to really pay attention to the difference.

"Probably the last stable one in all of Rapture," Shiro was saying. "But if that's the case than he was exempt from the grafting process, which means we could probably get him out of there if we're careful."

"And with multiple sessions of gene therapy and some extra trials of your serum we could potentially reverse the splicing..." Pidge finishes for him, the glint of a challenge in her eye. "The first cure for a Big Daddy."

"We're sure as hell gonna try," Shiro says with a chuckle, reaching up to pat Allura on the back, who at this point has quieted her sobs to the occasional hiccup. "How does that sound Allura? We're going to fix your Daddy."

"He's not my Daddy," she says in a small voice, sitting up as she wipes her face. She places a tiny hand against the helmet window. "His name's Coran."

That comes as a surprise to just about everyone present. Not only does Allura call the Big Daddy by an actual name, but she knows exactly who is inside the suit. It must have been an interesting series of events to have led to this pairing.

"Coran then," Shiro says, taking it in stride, looking up directly into what passes for the Big Daddy's face. "Coran, if you can hear me, we're going to get you out of there. I promise"

The Big Daddy (or Coran, you suppose; its much easier to imagine a living person inside the suit with a real name to put to him) groans in reply, soundly strangely pensive. You wonder how much of the man is still there, waiting to be let out.

"Well," Shiro sighs, turning to you, "it looks like its time to go our separate ways. I... can't thank you enough for what you've done. Without you I don't think we'd all be together again." He holds out his hand, the metal one again, and you're able to take it without hesitation. Shiro's a good man, you know that now, and you can only hope that life treats him better than it has in the past. Him and everyone else.

Looking at them now, holding each other up through pain and fatigue, offering a shoulder to lean on, you figure they don't look too different from you and the girls. The city's chewed you all up and spat you all back out, irrevocably damaged in some ways but hopefully capable of healing.

You watch them go ahead of you, all in a line holding onto some part of one another until they're lost in the gloom. Two of the girls have since insisted on being carried, with one riding piggyback and the other cradled in an arm. Two more hold onto your free hand while the last two have their hands gripping the sides of your trousers. No doubt they'll all get tired of walking soon enough. Hitching the one in your arm up into a more comfortable position you coax them all into a brisk walk. The sooner you can get them all to the surface the better.

The city fades into the darkness of the water below the bathysphere and as the sunlight filters down through the approaching surface you can almost imagine that Rapture will one day be a faded memory. Bobbing up on the waves at the base of the lighthouse you see that there are two already sitting empty and you can only shake head and wonder at how they got away so quickly.

Looking out across the water, you can see the sun cresting off the tops of the waves and climbing into the sky. The simple touch of sunlight is better than anything you can imagine. The girls squint their eyes in the brightness, but their arms stretch out for the warmth in simple wonder that makes your chest clench. You're all survivors now, with all the traumas that come with it, but together you'll work to overcome it. And who knows, maybe in 20 years you'll see Shiro and the others again, scarred but healing, and you'll be able to know that all the suffering wasn't for nothing.


End file.
